[CUPE healthcare list] Stephen Duckett: How our new premier can salvage health care. CALGARY HERALD SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

[Irene Jansen <ijansen@cupe.ca>]

Stephen Duckett: How our new premier can salvage health care. CALGARY HERALD SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Full Article:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/science/Stephen+Duckett+premier+salvage+health+care/5405952/story.html

Quotes:

 * Over the last decade, your predecessors were responsible for a systematic deterioration of health care in Alberta.
 * The regional health system that preceded the creation of Alberta Health Services was a mess.
 * Poor contracting practices with private providers gave rise to large regional differences in costs.
 * A single, provincewide health system is the right structure to tackle the problems facing Alberta. It allows sharing of good ideas and expertise, and fosters co-operation
 * stop using health spending as a pork barrel
 * When the province stopped consolidation of ambulance dispatch, for example, it cost money and resulted in longer dispatch times
 * invest in community care and accommodation for seniors before you promise any more hospital beds
 * Over the last decade, other provinces invested in these areas, while Alberta's per capita spending to build seniors' accommodation went down
 * The province needs to open 1,000 seniors' beds every year for the next decade to meet the emerging needs
 * maintain constraint in collective agreement negotiations
 * give priority to primary care
 * encourage self management and community support
 * continue to pursue efficiency strategies such as equitable funding based on activity
 * five-year commitment [of funding to Alberta Health Services]